With white stringy hair and small steampunk-round glasses framing his face, Robert Richardson could pass off as a mad scientist who loses a sense of time once he enters his lab. But Richardson channels that same work ethic to paint historical masterpieces with his camera and light. The three-time Academy award-winning cinematographer is known for his remarkable ability to recreate visual textures from the good old days.
On a short visit to India to shoot the climax of liquor brand Absolut's ad film 'Colourless', Richardson is an easy-going interviewee, taking questions thick and fast. He tries to recall the name of an Indian blockbuster he enjoyed watching recently, "It's in two parts," he struggles to remember, before someone helpfully interjects, Baahubali. "Yes that's one. F*** you guys, I don't care if you didn't like it. I absolutely loved it."
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Thank Richardson for the powerful images in the some our favourite Hollywood films. From the terrifying battlefields of the Vietnam War in Platoon; the national tragedy of President John F. Kennedy's assassination in JFK; technicolor noir on American organised crime and gaming in Casino; the early years of maverick business tycoon, film producer and director Howard Hughes in Aviator; the childlike nostalgic storytelling in Hugo to the electrifying World War II drama that was Inglourious Basterds, Richardson has forged firecracker collaborations with filmmakers like Oliver Stone, Quentin Tarantino and Martin Scorsese. He is now ready with his next film, Tarantino's latest Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, set to be released in July.
"The intention was to replicate a time period that was the 60s in Hollywood, of course, but we learnt a lot from movies made in the 70s as well. Rolling Thunder, TV Westerns like Gunsmoke, etc., they are all a part of it," says Richardson on the visual language of Tarantino's ninth feature film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, starring Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kurt Russel, Al Pacino, and Dakota Fanning among others. The action is centered in Los Angeles of 1969 at the peak of hippy Hollywood where a former TV western star struggles to revive his forgone glory in an industry he no longer recognizes.
In more than 90 years of its history, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has nominated only one female DoP in the best cinematographer category, i.e. Rachel Morrison for Mudbound. With #MeToo and #TimesUp roiling Hollywood, does Richardson expect to see more female cinematographers in the limelight from here on? "In my personal opinion, there should be less men in the world and more women. We are tired of men. This world needs to be altered and I am hoping that it alters in every capacity at every level, be it politics or entertainment."
Richardson first came to India thirty years ago for his honeymoon. Although he loves Bollywood and has seen all of Priyanka Chopra's films, he knows the real deal in Indian cinema. "The Apu Trilogy was a massive attack. Satyajit Ray is your master. Is there another master," he asks.